“We have essentially no patents in SpaceX. Our primary long-term competition is in China,” said Musk in the interview. “If we published patents, it would be farcical, because the Chinese would just use them as a recipe book.”

There are plenty of big holes in patent law — especially international patent law. And in some cases, they’re totally bypassed anyway.

Thus, Musk’s only option is to go with the trade secret route. That should end up working for a company like SpaceX, but as patent fights ramp up, something has to be done.

If you’re wondering if the iPad Mini had an effect on its competitors, it did. Just not the one you were thinking. The Kindle Fire HD actually had its biggest day of sales since its launch, the day after the iPad Mini was announced.

In a statement sent to AllThingsD, Amazon said:

“Wednesday was the $199 Kindle Fire HD’s biggest day of sales since launch and up 3x week over week”

The $199 Kindle Fire HD is the 16GB Wi-Fi version with special offers. Seems like instead of killing the Kindle Fire HD and Nexus 7, the iPad Mini actually legitimized them. Or maybe people were waiting to see what Apple would do with the iPad Mini before they made their decision on buying a smaller tablet (with a lot choosing the cheaper option).

In the bigger picture, we’re not sure exactly what it means since Amazon doesn’t release sales figures but it sure can’t be a bad thing for Amazon. [AllThingsD]

More gloomy news from Kodak: the company just announced that it will stop selling consumer inkjet printers in 2013 and instead focus its efforts on commercial printing products. This decision hardly comes as a surprise: Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year and attempted to auction off a stockpile of patents valued at up to $2.6 billion. The company stated on Friday that it expects to take a $90 million hit due to its floundering inkjet business. Kodak’s garage sale attracted interest from unlikely alliances in the form of Apple and Microsoft versus Google and Samsung, but reportedly only reeled in disappointing offers under the $500 million mark. Hoping to rebound next year as a “lean,” mean, successful machine, we’ll just have to wait and see what develops for this fallen photography frontrunner.

The federal court jury in the patent infringement lawsuit between Apple and Samsung has presented its verdict after deliberating for just 21 hours and 37 minutes following the three week trial. This particular case started with Apple’s lawsuit last April and now the jury’s decision is that Samsung did infringe on Apple’s ‘381 bounceback patent with all 21 of its products in question. For the ‘915 patent on pinch-and-zoom, the jury ruled all but three of the devices listed infringed, and more damningly, found that Samsung executives either knew or should have known their products infringed on the listed patents. The jury has also found against Samsung when it comes to Apple’s contours on the back of the iPhone and its home screen GUI. The Galaxy Tab, was found not to have infringed upon Apple’s iPad design patents. The bad news for Samsung continued however, as the jury decided that not only did it willfully infringe on five of the seven Apple patents, but also upheld their validity when it came to utility, design and trade dress.

The amount of the damages against Samsung is in: $1,051,855,000.00 (see below). That’s less than half of the $2.5 billion it was seeking, but still more than enough to put an exclamation point on this victory for the team from Cupertino. The final number is $1,049,343,540, after the judge found an issue with how the jury applied damages for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 4G LTE and Intercept. The jury also ruled that Apple did not infringe upon Samsung’s patents with the iPhone 3G and 3GS, and has awarded it zero dollars in damage. We’ll have more information for you as it become available.

Update: Both companies have released statements on the matter, with Apple stating via the New York Times the ruling sends a loud and clear message that “stealing isn’t right.” Samsung has its own viewpoint calling this “a loss for the American consumer” that will lead to fewer choices, less innovation and high prices. You can see both in their entirety after the break.

CNN Money recently reported that for the first time ever, shipments of LCD TVs were down in Q1 2012. The article attributes the decline to market saturation – most consumers already own a flatpanel TV, and those who don’t are likely willing to defer their purchase, especially given the weak global economy.

We’ve seen from past research that the majority of TV purchases are made offline – it’s an expensive, highly considered purchase for most consumers and seeing the product in person provides some reassurance that you’re making the right decision.

However, the online channel plays an important role for many consumers, in particular early in the research process. Retail websites are among the most popular resources for TV shoppers, who visit sites like BestBuy.com and Amazon to read consumer reviews and comparison shop feature sets and prices of TVs.

If interest in flatpanel TVs is waning, we would expect to see evidence of that in the online shopping behavior of US consumers. To test this, we looked at the volume of consumers shopping for LCD TVs at BestBuy.com, a leading online retailer of TVs.

Interest in LCD TVs on BestBuy.com has actually grown significantly (up 36% Y-O-Y in Q1 2012). This held true in April & May of 2012, where LCD interest was up 62% Y-O-Y vs. 2011.

LCD TV shipments are down, yet online consumers continue to show strong interest in the product category – what’s driving the diverging trends? Consumers are still interested in buying TVs, they’re just becoming more cautious about pulling the trigger. As a result, consumers are likely spending more time researching and shopping for deals from multiple sources online.

As online consumers become increasingly savvy about seeking deals for TVs and considering alternative options like tablets, the pressure will be on OEMs and retailers to optimize their campaigns and eCommerce experiences to compete for a shrinking pool of dollars.

Adscend Media is the jerk ad agency responsible for many of the “OMG LOL THIS VIDEO IS SO GOOD JUSTIN BEIBER” links on Facebook that, when clicked, spam the same crap link to your friends. It has just been fined $100,000 by a Washington court for spamming and scamming Facebook users.

The thing is, that $100,000 fine looks tiny compared to the $1.2 million that Adscent Media brings in every month; 80 percent of which comes from the scammy links that, really, should be punishable by orbital bombardment. Facebook itself is trying to legislate stuff like this out of our lives, and this decision is a step in that direction, but there’s still a lot of lawyering left to do. [Venture Beat]

When it comes to swaying consumers, nothing beats word of mouth. That’s because, 92 percent of people trust recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising when making a purchase decision, according to a new study. That number was up nearly 20 percent from 2007.

Those findings, however, only begin to highlight the changing advertising model. According to research by Nielsen, fewer than half of all people still find paid traditional television, magazine and newspaper ads credible. Those numbers, however, were down 24 percent, 20 percent and 25 percent respectively across those mediums since 2009. As for online customer reviews, 70 percent of people profess trust in the appraisals, up 15 percent in the past four years.

“While brand marketers increasingly seek to deploy more effective advertising strategies, Nielsen’s survey shows that the continued proliferation of media messages may be impacting how well they resonate with their intended audiences on various platforms,” said Randall Beard, global head of advertiser solutions at Nielsen. “Although television advertising will remain a primary way marketers connect with audiences due to its unmatched reach compared to other media, consumers around the world continue to see recommendations from friends and online consumer opinions as by far the most credible. As a result, successful brand advertisers will seek ways to better connect with consumers and leverage their goodwill in the form of consumer feedback and experiences.”

Online advertisements, on the other hand, are a growing medium. Consumers who find online banner ads credible grew from 26 percent in 2007 to 33 percent of people today. Additionally, ads viewed in search engine results and on socialnetworks were trusted among nearly 40 percent of people. Consumer trust in ads from mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones as well as text message ads grew 61 percent since 2007.

More creative forms of ads are also starting to grow in credibility. According to the research, nearly 60 percent of consumers responded to advertising on company websites, while 50 percent of consumers responded to company emails. Surprisingly, slightly more than 40 percent of people were swayed when seeing product placements in television shows, radio ads and movie ads.

“The growth in trust for online search and display ads over the past four years should give marketers increased confidence in putting more of their ad dollars into this medium,” said Beard. “Many companies are already increasing their paid advertising activity on socialnetworkingsites, in part due to the high level of trust consumers place in friends’ recommendations and online opinions. Brands should be watching this emerging ad channel closely as it continues to grow.”

The information in the Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising survey was based on the responses and behaviors of 28,000 people from 56 countries around the world.

SPOILERS. Who can’t name a beloved TV series that didn’t end the way you wanted? BSG? Lost? Sapphire and Steel? Blake’s Seven? Quantum Leap? The Sopranos? All of which ended either with tear-inducing bum-notes or confusing conclusions that caused furious head scratching. Despite that, the traditional reaction is to say “Well, I didn’t enjoy that, but I respect the writer’s artistic decision.” Not so for gamers who felt short-changed by the intentionally devastating conclusion to Mass Effect 3. Fans of the game poured their outrage online, developer BioWare saying that the feedback it had received was “incredibly painful.” A fan campaign that raised $80,000 in under a fortnight for Child’s Play was enough to make the team behind the title concede defeat against the geo-political disruptor that is the internet with a cause. The company is now devoting all of its efforts to producing an “extended cut” DLC for the summer, but fans expecting a fourth ending where they can watch Commander Shepard on a sun-lounger, margarita in hand had better start complaining now — the new content will only offer more depth and an extended epilogue to those tragic scenes you’ve already witnessed. SPOILERS END

It looks like Mozilla is ready to throw in the towel in its battle against the patent-laden H.264 video codec. Over the last week or so, the software foundation has struggled publicly with whether or not to support the MPEG-LA-owned format. Now several of Firefox’s biggest players have all come out in support of the move and all that’s left is to actually bake the appropriate code into the browser. Both chairman Mitchell Baker and CTO Brendan Eich embraced the decision this weekend, however begrudgingly, in blog posts. Both admit that success in the mobile space requires them to abandon the quest to make WebMthe standard for streaming video in HTML5. Even with Google’s support, at least on the desktop, VP8 was never able to seriously threaten the entrenched and battery-friendly (not to mention, Apple and Microsoft backed) H.264. For more details check out the source links.

Media buying today is no easy task – it has to be simple, effective, and relevant.

Ask any buyer and they will tell you there are seemingly infinite choices available to them in selecting media for their clients.

How do they reach a final decision? Price? Relationship? Brand? Environment? Big idea?

All of these are good reasons, but I’d postulate that information or insights that can be learned from the partner are increasingly an important part of the final buying process.

Buyers want and need to learn more about what is and isn’t working for their clients across all media channels in order to best optimize existing and future campaigns.

Many vendors and start-ups are trying to apply new technology to media in an effort to make inventory more valuable and effective for publishers and advertisers alike.

And, ideally, they are trying to use technology to fuse data with inventory, not only to differentiate themselves from the crowd pre-sale but also to generate post-campaign “learnings” to share with the client.

Top media and technology companies have long been optimizing campaigns from the start (the day the campaign goes live) to ensure clients get the results they are looking for.

Additionally, they are working with an array of technologies and partners, such as Compete and Dimestore, to provide actionable “learnings” during the campaign and afterwards.

By integrating post-buy reports with most branding programs, these companies are able to give marketers a view of their audience they rarely see and, more importantly, work hand and hand with them to build repeatable programs that work for clients.

Using data and technology to improve media effectiveness can be very rewarding – often clients see a tremendous lift in key brand measures.

But the application of technology takes patience, experience and a bit of art to find the right mix of capabilities to work for each client. When media meets technology the impact can be impressive, but don’t assume just because you apply data or technology to media that you will get the desired result.

You need to work with a partner that has the people, platform and knowledge to apply technology appropriately and deliver the insights and results you expect.

What do you think?

The views expressed here reflect the views of the author alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of 24/7 Real Media, its affiliates, subsidiaries or its parent company, WPP plc.

Digital Consigliere

Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.